Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by the legendary labor organizer, John O'Shafer. When John O'Shafer

retired from the Service Employees International Union in 2021.

Harold Meyerson of the American prospect said,

Over the past four decades, there have been scores of gifted and dedicated union organizers

who've done great work only to see that work thwarted by labor law that now enables management to defeat nearly

all efforts at unionization, as Amazon recently did, at its Alabama warehouse. So it's particularly

notable when one of those organizers actually leads efforts that end in historic victories,

and more notable still when those victories

lead to the unionization of entire sectors of workers. One of those precious few organizers,

Jono Schaefer, the Los Angeles-based organizing genius of the service employees International Union.

He has organized janitors, childcare workers, security guards.

John O'Sheafer, thank you so much for joining us on Curative Affairs today.

That's my pleasure, Nathan.

Thanks for having me.

I take issue with the term.

Do you?

Organizing genius?

You don't think that applies?

Those kinds of planet, I definitely shy away from, and all good organizing is a team effort.

So have I contributed to a lot of incredibly good and successful campaign? I would own that.

Yeah, I think it is fair to say, yeah, we can dispute how our virus as particular characterization

...